"Gaelic" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and fertile in adventure. Our new companions were not of the most agreeable cast: they were rough and surly, hiding, we thought, a desire to avoid communication under the pretence of inability to speak any thing but Gaelic; while, in the midst of their Celtic communications with each other, they swore profusely in the Scottish vernacular. What their pursuits were, or what occasion they had to be in that wild region, was to us a complete mystery, opened up slightly by reflecting on the two great lawless pursuits, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... the Gothamites are found almost unaltered in Gaelic. That of the twelve fishers has been already mentioned, and here is the story of the attempt to drown an eel, which Campbell gives in similar terms in his Tales of ...
— The Book of Noodles - Stories Of Simpletons; Or, Fools And Their Follies • W. A. Clouston
... from executing his friendly purpose by a sort of crowd which came rushing down the alley, the centre of which was occupied by Captain MacTurk, in the very act of bullying two pseudo Highlanders, for having presumed to lay aside their breeches before they had acquired the Gaelic language. The sounds of contempt and insult with which the genuine Celt was overwhelming the unfortunate impostors, were not, indeed, intelligible otherwise than from the tone and manner of the speaker; but these intimated so much displeasure, that the plaided ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... inn at which we stopped could hold. I went out into the street to get a look at the place, but a genuine Scotch mist covering me with water soon compelled me to return. I heard the people, a well-limbed brawny race of men, with red hair and beards, talking to each other in Gaelic, and saw through the fogs only a glimpse of the sides of the mountains and ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... no less, a hundred and twelve lines,' said the insufferable Merton. 'Could you give us them in Gaelic?' ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... The old man was counting his sheep, using the ancient Gaelic numerals from one to ten, which had been handed down from one shepherd to another from time immemorial. And as he called out the numbers his hand fumbled among the bed-clothes as though he were searching for the notches on his ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... alcove in the north curtain with a desk and ample surrounding shelves. These were filled for me by expert hands with whatever I might require for my task, and a screen shut off my corner from the corridor through which at times perambulated Roosevelt, and other secluded delvers, intent on early Gaelic literature and what not. Here I spent the most of two years, finding it an ideal spot, but my task required more than an examination, under the quiet light of my great window, of books and documents. The fields themselves must also be surveyed, ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... over into barracks, or riding-schools; the market closed; the State House filled with lounging officers; and the streets thronged, even at this early hour, by a varied uniformed soldiery, speaking Cockney English, the jargon of the counties, Scottish Gaelic, or guttural German, as they elbowed their passage, the many scarlet jackets interspersed with the blue of artillery and cavalry, the Hessian red and yellow, the green of the rifle-corps, or the kilts of the Highlanders. Lancers and Huzzars, Grenadiers, ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... speak! What is the song the harper sings, what tongue Is this he speaks? for in no Gaelic lands Is speech like this upon the lips of men. No word of all these honey-dripping words Is known to me. Beware, beware the words Brewed in the moonshine under ancient oaks White with pale banners of the mistletoe Twined round them ...
— The Book of Hallowe'en • Ruth Edna Kelley
... by a number of half-savages like the one who has just appeared upon the scene, the inhabitants call them "the Gars of such or such a parish." This classic name is a reward for the fidelity with which they struggle to preserve the traditions of the language and manners of their Gaelic ancestors; their lives show to this day many remarkable and deeply embedded vestiges of the beliefs and superstitious practices of those ancient times. Feudal customs are still maintained. Antiquaries find Druidic monuments still ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... during many centuries, been predominant. It drove out the Celtic—it was not driven out by the Teutonic—and it is at this day the basis of the French, Spanish, and Portuguese languages. In our island the Latin appears never to have superseded the old Gaelic speech, and could not stand its ground before the German.' It was in the fifth century that that modification of the German or Teutonic speech called the Anglo-Saxon was introduced into this country. It soon asserted its superiority over the British tongue, which seemed to retreat before ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... in appending this observation to a tradition extracted from "Grahame's Sketches of Scenery in Perthshire" pp. 116-118, remarks—"that this story, translated by Dr. G. from a Gaelic tradition, is to be found in the Otia Imperialia of Gervase ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... and shame of the autobiographies that flood and dishearten the world, that they are so uncandid in their relation of those emotional episodes in life—episodes which have to do with what we know for some curious reason as "the softer passions." Caesar's Gaelic wars, his bridges, his trouble with the impedimenta, his fights with the Helvetians—who cares for them? Who cares greatly for Napoleon's expedition against the Allies? Of what human interest is Grant's tale of the Wilderness fighting? But to know of Calpurnia, ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... of the Norwegian Kingdom of the Hebrides until the 13th century when it was ceded to Scotland, the isle came under the British crown in 1765. Current concerns include reviving the almost extinct Manx Gaelic language. Isle of Man is a British crown dependency but is not part of the UK. However, the UK Government remains constitutionally responsible for its defense and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... house in search of work. As they travelled about, they picked up great numbers of tales, which they repeated; "and as the country people made the telling of these tales, and listening to hear them, their winter night's amusement, scarcely any part of them would be lost." In these tales Gaelic words were often used which had dropped out of ordinary parlance, giving proof of careful adherence to the ancient forms; and the writer records that the previous year he had heard a story told identical with one he had heard forty years before from a different man thirty miles away; ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... translations from the Gaelic on pages 77 and 78 were made by the late P. H. Pearse, who was executed in Dublin for his part in the Easter Rebellion. The translations appeared in New Ireland, and I am indebted to the Editor of that review for permission ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... clans came in, and as Charles marched southeast, each glen sent down its warriors to join the stream. The clansmen, as a rule, had probably little knowledge of or interest in the cause. They followed their chiefs. The surviving Gaelic poetry speaks much of the chieftains; of Tearlach, righ nan Gael, but little is said. It was the middle of August before the rulers of England received the news of the landing. They at once set a reward of L30,000 on Charles's head, a proceeding "unusual among ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... kiss. He was too frightened to speak, but put his head under his coverlet and went to sleep. Once more he was roused in like manner, and saw the same sight. In the morning he spoke to his father about it, who told him that it was Macdonnochie [the Gaelic patronymic of the laird of Inverawe] whom he had seen, and who came to tell him that he had been killed in a great battle in America. Sure enough, said my informant, it was on the very day that the battle of Ticonderoga was fought and the ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... words like one unused to speak much. They were in the Gaelic language, which was often spoken by Simon and his family. Madge immediately brought her some food; she was evidently famished. It was impossible to say how long she might have been in ...
— The Underground City • Jules Verne
... and south—cast, in local customs and vernacular dialects. In Ireland, in the highlands of Scotland, in the Hebrides and the Isle of Man, Gauls (Gaels) still live under their primitive name. There we still have the Gaelic race and tongue, free, if not from any change, at least ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... of this song," says Burns, "is originally from the Highlands. I have heard a Gaelic song to it, which was not by any means a lady's song." "It occurs," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "in the Museum, without the name of Burns." It was sent in the poet's own handwriting to Johnson, and is believed to be ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... hovels, much farther up the road. A faint light struggled through the small thick panes of glass of a window little more than a half-yard square. The door opened as they drew up, and a woman came out, talking very fast and shrilly in the native Gaelic, which the children had often heard spoken, but understood scarcely at all. Elsie could make out that she was scolding very much, but that was all. As she came near her eyes fell upon the two children. She stood still ...
— Little Folks - A Magazine for the Young (Date of issue unknown) • Various
... in the 'Irish Ecclesiastical Record' (1910). Mac Eaglaise's edition, though it is not all that could be desired, is far the most satisfactory which has yet appeared. Previous editions of the Rule or part of it comprise one by Dr. Reeves in his tract on the Culdees, one by Kuno Meyer in the 'Gaelic Journal' (Vol. V.) and another in 'Archiv fuer C.L.' (3 Bund. 1905), and another again in 'Eriu' (Vol. 2, p. 172), besides a free translation of the whole rule by O'Curry in the 'I. R. Record' for 1864. The text of the 'Record' edition of 1910 is from Leabhar ...
— Lives of SS. Declan and Mochuda • Anonymous
... certain kinds of novel writing, both Association and Rugby Football seem to come to the Scotchmen by nature. My readers can, perhaps, easily remember the clever jeu d'esprit on the antiquity of the Gaelic tongue which appeared several years ago advocating the claims of that race as lisping the first "speech" heard in Eden in a manner that must have stirred the blood of Professor Blackie. As the history of Association Football, with which I have only to deal under the present ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... hero in this Dutch romance is Gawain,—Gawain the Courteous, in splendid armour, playing the part of Mac Iain Direach. The discrepancy is very great, and there can be little doubt that the story as told in Gaelic fifty years ago by Angus Campbell, quarryman, is, in respect of the hero's condition and manners, more original than the medieval romance. Both versions are simple enough in their plot, and their plot is one and the same: the story of a quest for something wonderful, leading to another ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... called Lowland Scotch is so nearly descended from the Old Northumbrian that the latter was invariably called "Ingliss" by the writers who employed it; and they reserved the name of "Scottish" to designate Gaelic or Erse, the tongue of the original "Scots," who gave their name to the country. Barbour (Bruce, IV 253) calls his own language "Ynglis." Andro of Wyntown does the same, near the beginning of the Prologue ...
— English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day • Walter W. Skeat
... Butler Yeats published his Wanderings of Oisin; in the same year Douglas Hyde, the scholar and folk-lorist, brought out his Book of Gaelic Stories. ...
— Modern British Poetry • Various
... are, however, so far determined by the fragments of Gaelic originals, since published by Scottish antiquaries, that the amplifications ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... however, are not written by the Editor, as he has often explained, 'out of his own head.' The stories are taken from those told by grannies to grandchildren in many countries and in many languages—French, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Gaelic, Icelandic, Cherokee, African, Indian, Australian, Slavonic, Eskimo, and what not. The stories are not literal, or word by word translations, but have been altered in many ways to make them suitable for children. Much has been left out in places, and the narrative ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Various
... Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish, Swedish; note - only official languages ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... war, and must be amended. But, Andrew Arnot, this is a long tale of yours, and we will cut it with a drink; as the Highlander says, Skeoch doch nan skial ['Cut a tale with a drink;' an expression used when a man preaches over his liquor, as bons vivants say in England. S.]; and that 's good Gaelic.—Here is to the Countess Isabelle of Croye, and a better husband to her than Campobasso, who is a base Italian cullion!—And now, Andrew Arnot, what said the muleteer to this ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... the strife is imported a race difference, where the division is not of party but of people? That is in truth the vain hope. And be it borne in mind the race difference is not due to our predominating Gaelic stock, but to the separate countries and to distinct households in the human race. If we were all of English extraction the difference would still exist. There is the historic case of the American States; it is easy to understand. When a man's children come of age, they set ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... their men, a common precaution among the fur traders when mingling with the natives. This, however, looked like preparation. Then several of the partners and clerks and some of the men, being Scotsmen, were acquainted with the Gaelic, and held long conversations together in that language. These conversations were considered by the captain of a "mysterious and unwarranted nature," and related, no doubt, to some foul conspiracy ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... "Indeed and indeed, and it's the new doctor! Hoch, yes, yes, it is welcome you will be to Elmbrook. Eh, and we would not be expecting such a fine-looking one. Indeed, no! And it would be a fine Scottish name, too, oh, a fine name indeed, Allen. And—you would not be hafing the Gaelic, I suppose?" His eyes gleamed wistfully from between ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... eyeing the bottle, and added with a brutal laugh that "he could weather the roughest gale that ever wind did blow." A whole Gaelic society, he said, wouldn't ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... familiar ground to the Phoenician colonists of ages ago. I am sure you know that! The Gaelic tongue is the genuine dialect of the ancient Phoenician Celtic, and when I speak the original language to a Highlander who only knows his native Gaelic he understands ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... reached their new home in March, 1848, under the guidance of Captain Cargill, an old soldier, who had been chosen as leader of the new settlement. At the head of a fine harbour, which they called Port Chalmers, they laid the foundations of a town, to which they gave the patriotic name of Dunedin, Gaelic for Edinburgh. It was in a fine district, troubled by few natives, and it steadily grew. Less than a year later, it had 745 inhabitants, who could boast of a good jetty, and a newspaper. The life of pioneers cannot be very easy, but these were of the right sort and prospered, and more ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... evening. E'er, ever. Eerie, apprehensive; inspiring ghostly fear. Eild, eld. Eke, also. Elbuck, elbow. Eldritch, unearthly, haunted, fearsome. Elekit, elected. Ell (Scots), thirty-seven inches. Eller, elder. En', end. Eneugh, enough. Enfauld, infold. Enow, enough. Erse, Gaelic. Ether-stane, adder-stone. Ettle, aim. Evermair, evermore. Ev'n down, downright, positive. ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... was composed of elements as motley as ever met under any commander. On the Paris and Rouen Railway eleven languages were spoken— English, Erse, Gaelic, Welsh, French, German, Belgian (Flemish), Dutch, Piedmontese, Spanish, and Polish. A common lingo naturally sprang up like the Pigeon English of China. But in the end it seems many of the navvies learnt to speak French ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... kingdom unexplored. But, when we examine his narrative, we find that he had never ventured beyond the extreme skirts of the Celtic region. He tells us that even from the people who lived close to the passes he could learn little or nothing about the Gaelic population. Few Englishmen, he says, had ever seen Inverary. All beyond Inverary was chaos, [320] In the reign of George the First, a work was published which professed to give a most exact account of Scotland; and in this work, consisting of more than three ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... having furnished him with some information as to Eastern matters, was Colonel James Ferguson of Huntly Burn, one of the sons of the venerable historian and philosopher of that name—which name he took the liberty of concealing under its Gaelic form of Mac-Erries. ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... activity (as will appear in Chapter VII) the idea of a General Convention took firm root and led to remarkable developments. For the present, the chief work of these clubs was the circulation of Paine's volumes (even in Welsh, Gaelic, and Erse) at the price of sixpence or even less. They also distributed "The Catechism of the French Constitution" (of 1791), drawn up by Christie, a Scot domiciled at Paris, which set forth the beauties of that child of many hopes. Less objectionable was a pamphlet—"The Rights of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... faint suggestion of the Scotch accent, whether they spoke English or broke into Dutch. When I remarked upon it, Cousin Cornelia laughed and said it was perhaps the common Celtic ancestry; and that if the Dutch heard Gaelic talked, they could recognize a few ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... kind abound among the sea-loving Gaelic and Cymric people. Nowhere, perhaps, have they been given a more pleasing and touching expression than in Arnold's poem. Note carefully the dramatic manner in which the pathos of the story ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold
... their mode of life and their treatment of women, are all so closely similar to that of the Greeks of Homer that a theory has been advanced and ably defended, that the Homeric Greeks were really invading Celts—Gaelic or Gaulish tribes from the north of Europe. If it indeed be so, we owe to the Celts a debt of imperishable culture and civilisation. To them belongs more especially, in our national amalgam, the passion for the past, the ardent patriotism, the longing ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... to the corn-land reaper, And plaided mountaineer,— To the cottage and the castle The piper's song is dear; Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch O'er mountain, glen, and glade, But the sweetest of all music The pipes at ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... Iscariot," showing that the writer did not regard the word Iscariot as the fixed name of Judas only, but knew that it might be applied to any man of Kerioth. In fact, the Greek of St. John is exactly like the English of a Scottish Highlander who has only spoken Gaelic in his earlier days, and, when he has acquired English, shows his origin by the continued use of a few Gaelic idioms and his ...
— The Books of the New Testament • Leighton Pullan
... sea on either hand of it, full of rugged isles and reefs most perilous to seamen—all overlooked from the eastward by some very high cliffs and the great peals of Ben Kyaw. The Mountain of the Mist, they say the words signify in the Gaelic tongue; and it is well named. For that hill-top, which is more than three thousand feet in height, catches all the clouds that come blowing from the seaward; and, indeed, I used often to think that it must make them for itself; ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... fringe of the Gaelic land where he walked as a boy, the cliffs were as fantastic as the clouds. Heaven seemed to humble itself and come closer to the earth. The common paths of his little village began to climb quite suddenly and seemed resolved to go to heaven. The sky seemed to fall ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... wizened face, to which the unkempt hair, tufted eyebrows, and straggling whiskers gave a strong resemblance to a Skye terrier dog. Margot watched him now and then for a minute or two as she passed up and down, and heard him speaking once or twice, but he "had the Gaelic," and the sing-song voice and mysterious words sounded weirdly in her ears. Sometimes, as he put the final polish on the boots, he would break into song,—a strange, tuneless song which quavered up and down, and ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... author's books tend to be a bit religious, and this is no exception. On the mother's death the Redfern family moved to Canada, where there was a strong Scottish tradition, with preacher and kirk much as they had been in Scotland, and with many of the services in Gaelic, the language which many of these Scottish emigrants had spoken since their birth. The family settle on a small farm, bringing up the children, including Christie, in a good ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... any attention to this, and after going to the window and looking out at the Gaelic moon, which was about half full and rolling along among the clouds, I turned to Jone and said, "Jone, let's sing 'Scots wha ha',' before we go ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton
... language, many other tongues have furnished their quota. Of these the Celtic is perhaps the oldest. The Britons at Caesar's invasion, were a part of the Celtic family. The Celtic idiom is still spoken in two dialects, the Welsh in Wales, and the Gaelic in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland. The Celtic words in English, are comparatively few; cart, dock, wire, rail, rug, cradle, babe, grown, griddle, lad, lass, are some ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... who gabbled a jargon half Gaelic, Exclaim'd, "Hoot awa, mon, you're a' gane astray"— And declared that "whoe'er might prefer the METALLIC, They'd shoe their OWN ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... will do to you whatever, if you cannot keep off that crapeau yonder a little better," said Big Mack, reaching for a Frenchman who kept dodging in upon him with annoying persistence. Then Mack began to swear Gaelic oaths. ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... no one of course would quarrel, but it does not follow, as the Gaelic element in Sinn Fein seemed to think, that "every Irishman who does not speak Irish is against his will a representative of English Domination in Ireland and striking a blow at his country's heart." For when we come to consider it, English ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... this the holy renowned bishop, head of justice and faith in the Gaelic island came into Ireland, i.e. Patrick sent by Celestinus, the Pope. Aongus Mac Nathfrich went to meet him soon as he heard the account of his coming. He conducted him (Patrick) with reverence and great honour to his ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... my guardian, she was amazed at the things I was familiar with, but she abhorred the dark, frowning castle and the loneliness of the place and would not stay. In fact, no governess would stay, and so Angus became my tutor and taught me old Gaelic and Latin and Greek, and we read together and studied the ancient books in the library. It was a strange education for a girl, and no doubt made me more than ever unlike others. But my life was the ...
— The White People • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Hugh M'Diarmid, minister of the Gaelic church, Glasgow, John M'Diarmid was born in 1790. He received in Edinburgh a respectable elementary education; but, deprived of his father at an early age, he was left unaided to push his fortune in life. For some time he acted as clerk in connexion with ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume III - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... is a mere conjecture or prejudice. The absolute leviation of phlogiston, in contrast with the gravitation of all other forms of matter, discredited that supposed agent. That Macpherson should have found the Ossianic poems extant in the Gaelic memory, was contrary to the nature of oral tradition; except where tradition is organised, as it was for ages among the Brahmins. The suggestion that xanthochroid Aryans were "bleached" by exposure during the glacial period, does not agree with ...
— Logic - Deductive and Inductive • Carveth Read
... smaller and heavier than that of America and is generally made of rubber. The official ball called for by the Gaelic Athletic Association of Ireland is hard, covered with sheepskin or any other leather, and is not less than 1-1/2 ounces nor more than 1-3/4 ounces in weight. Handballs suitable for the game of that name may be had of leather and rubber, ranging ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... also not a little of the capabilities of his own language; for, Celt as he was by birth and country and mental character, he could not speak the Gaelic: that language, soft as the speech of streams from rugged mountains, and wild as that of the wind in the tops of fir-trees, the language at once of bards and fighting men, had so far ebbed from the region, lingering only here and there in the hollow pools of old memories, that Donal had never ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... whose English prose has adorned our period. It was 1918, and the eve of forced conscription, and his indignation with English policy was intense. "I will give up their language," he said, "all except Shakespeare. I will write only Gaelic." Unfortunately, he could read Gaelic much better than he could write it. In his heart, indeed, he knew how mad he would have been to give up the only literary tradition which, thanks to language, could be his own; and in a calmer mood ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... of Venice—a very splendid and imposing spectacle. It seems to me a pity to let these old customs die out so completely. I estimate that more than half these Gothic forms have altogether passed out of memory. There must have been some splendid things in Erse and Gaelic too; for the Celtic mind, with its more vivid sense of colour, its quicker transitions, and deeper emotional quality, has ever over-cursed the stolid Teuton. But ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... These hold that it cramps and dwarfs the national genius; but in the mean time in Ireland the national genius, long enlarged to our universal English, offers the strange spectacle of an endeavor to climb back into its Gaelic shell. ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... his position likes to do many harmless things which cannot be done on five shillings a week, and so he sought the haunts of "thieves and chimney sweeps!" he says, and wrote sonnets in those shy retreats, which are known, perhaps, in Scotland, as "shebeens." Why "shebeens"? Is the word Gaelic misspelled? Cases of "shebeening" are tried before the Edinburgh magistrates, and as "my circle was being continually changed by the action of the police magistrates" (he says) conceivably his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... air of being Norse. But the story of Scottish nomenclature is confounded by a continual process of translation and half-translation from the Gaelic which in olden days may have been sometimes reversed. Roy becomes Reid; Gow, Smith. A great Highland clan uses the name of Robertson; a sept in Appin that of Livingstone; Maclean in Glencoe answers to Johnstone at Lockerby. And we find such hybrids as Macalexander for Macallister. There is ...
— Records of a Family of Engineers • Robert Louis Stevenson
... place in this square. Now, my dear fellow, here is the prison, which ought to give you some idea of human vicissitudes. Gil Blas didn't change his condition more often than this monument its purposes. Before Caesar it was a Gaelic temple; Caesar converted it into a Roman fortress; an unknown architect transformed it into a military work during the Middle Ages; the Knights of Baye, following Caesar's example, re-made it into a fortress; the princes of Savoy used it for a residence; the aunt of ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... is an example of the kind of similarities which establish the relationship of the group. As for likeness of roots, here is a specimen: gyordunus is the Turkish for the Finnish naikke.—So here you see a degree of kinship much more remote than that you find in the Aryan. Where, say, Dutch and Gaelic are brothers—at least near relations and bosom friends,—Turkish and Mongol are about fifteenth cousins by marriage twice removed, and hardly even nod to each other in passing. And yet Turks and Mongols both claim descent from the ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... him, but for the crafty and pitiless executioner of the king's justice. But he is after all the most interesting character in the piece, with his Biblical references in broad Lowland Scots (we may suppose that the Stewarts speak Gaelic among themselves), his superstition, his remorseless cruelty. We should like to see how he takes the discovery that, perhaps for the first time, he has been baffled in his career of unscrupulous ...
— The Atlantic Book of Modern Plays • Various
... think of marrying at that time would be regarded as recklessly careless respecting their future happiness Old people in some parts of Argyllshire were wont to invoke the Divine blessing on the moon after the monthly change. The Gaelic word for fortune is borrowed from that which denotes the full moon; and a marriage or birth occurring at that period is believed ...
— Moon Lore • Timothy Harley
... himself, alone, To do his ghostly battling, With curdling groan and dismal moan, And lots of chains a-rattling! But no—the chiel's stout Gaelic stuff Withstood all ghostly harrying; His fingers closed upon the snuff Which upwards he ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... Gaelic League in Cluhir," said Barty, eagerly. "There are a lot learning Irish. I suppose you wouldn't be disposed to become a member, Miss Christian?" He gazed at ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... but never lived at Dhrum. He only came there once in a while to visit the tenants who'd hired the castle from him, if they happened to be people he knew, and would 'do' him well. He and his daughter were mostly in London, where they had a flat, and prided themselves on knowing no Gaelic. They took pains to show that they considered the crofter's son a common brat, and resented the meenister's' expecting them to do anything for his future, just because his name happened to be MacDonald, and he lived in a hut on a remote ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... I know. This is an old puzzle of mine. You see C.'s dialect is not wholly a bed of roses. If only I knew the Gaelic. Well, I'll try ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... crowded by Gaelic Leaguers and the proceedings were marked by some disorderly scenes, until the magistrates ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, March 1, 1916 • Various
... wildest recesses of the Perthshire Highlands. It was in autumn, and the little school supported mainly by the Chief, who dwelt all the year round in the midst of his own people, was to be examined by the minister, whose native tongue, like that of his flock, was Gaelic, and who was as awkward and ineffectual, and sometimes as unconsciously indecorous, in his English, as a Cockney is in his kilt. It was a great occasion: the keen-eyed, firm-limbed, brown-cheeked little fellows were all in a buzz of excitement as we came in, and before the ...
— Spare Hours • John Brown
... (The). Ossian said to Oscar, when he resigned to him the command of the morrow's battle, "Be thine the secret hill to-night," referring to the Gaelic custom of the commander of an army retiring to a secret hill the night before a battle, to hold communion with the ghosts of departed heroes.—Ossian, ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... Mississippi; ay, and she would find her name known and reverenced in every hamlet, and see copies of Uncle Tom's Cabin in the shepherd's shieling, beside Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the Life of Sir William Wallace, Rob Roy, and the Gaelic Bible. I saw copies of it carried by travellers last autumn among the gloomy grandeurs of Glencoe, and, as Coleridge once said when he saw Thomson's Seasons lying in a Welsh wayside inn, 'That is true fame,' I thought this was fame truer still. [Applause.] ...
— Sunny Memories Of Foreign Lands, Volume 1 (of 2) • Harriet Elizabeth (Beecher) Stowe
... information, until I met an old schoolmaster in the neighbourhood, from whom I had obtained much insight into the manners and customs of that district. He informed me that there is a distemper occasioned by want of water, which cattle are subject to, called in the Gaelic language shag dubh, which in English signifies 'black haunch.' It is a very infectious disease, and, if not taken in time, would carry off most of the cattle in the country." The method taken by the Highlanders to prevent its destructive ravages is thus: "All fires are extinguished between the ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... scholar, ed. at Eton and Edin., was afterwards Sec. to the Lighthouse Commission. He was an authority on Celtic folk-lore, and pub. Popular Tales of the West Highlands (4 vols., 1860-62), and various Gaelic texts. ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... personality, for he swept England with a tidal wave of impassioned eloquence. Second, he unloosed as never before the reservoirs of ink, for he used every device of newspaper and pamphlet to drive home his message. He even printed his creed in Gaelic, Welsh and Erse. Third, he employed his kinship with the people to the fullest extent. The Commoner won. As the great structure of social reform rose under his dynamic powers so did the influence of the House of Lords crumble ...
— The War After the War • Isaac Frederick Marcosson
... hunting-grounds. Very probably these were on both sides of the Earn—stretching westward into the neighbouring parish of Dunning, the northmost part of which is still called Dalreoch or Dailrigh, a word which, in Gaelic, means ...
— Chronicles of Strathearn • Various
... Highland property at Lochshiel, Mr. Hope-Scott personally acquainted himself with his smaller tenantry, and entered into all their history, going about with a keeper known by the name of 'Black John,' who acted as his Gaelic interpreter. His frank and kindly manners quite won their hearts. Sometimes he would ask his guests to accompany him on such visits, and make them observe the peculiarities of the Celtic character. On one of these occasions he and ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... love-songs of our coast and island people, they seem to be for the most part a little artificial in method, a little strained in metaphor perhaps so giving rise to the Scotch Gaelic saying: 'as loveless as an Irishman.' Love of country, tir-gradh, is I think the real passion; and bound up with it are love of home, of family, love of God. Constancy and affection in marriage are the rule; yet marriage 'for love' is all but unknown; marriage is a matter of commonsense ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... civilised Britons. At all events, when history begins Goidels were only to be found in Ireland, though at a later time they colonised a part of what is now known as Scotland, and sent some offshoots into Wales. At present the languages derived from that of the Goidels are the Gaelic of the Highlands, the Manx of the Isle of Man, and the Erse of Ireland. The only language now spoken in the British Isles which is derived from that of the Britons is the Welsh; but the old Cornish language, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... Campbell: "This story of a stupid boy has a parallel in a Gaelic tale in my collection, where the boy dated an event which was true by a fall of pancakes or something of the kind which was not true, and was not believed though he told the truth." [At p. 385, vol. II. of the Tales of the West Highlands a "half booby" ...
— Indian Fairy Tales • Anonymous
... grave is approached by going round in the same manner. The bride is conducted to her future spouse in the presence of the minister; and the glass goes round in company in the course of the sun. This is called in Gaelic, going round in the right or lucky way; the opposite course is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 368, May 2, 1829 • Various
... Society of Scotland, with English-Gaelic and Latin-Gaelic Vocabularies, 2 vols. 4to. (pub. at ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 58, December 7, 1850 • Various
... CEILIDH will be commenced in the next number, and continued from month to month. Under this heading will be given Highland Legends, Old Unpublished Gaelic Poetry, Riddles, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... (1736-1796) published between 1760 and 1765 what he alleged to be a translation of the ancient Gaelic hero-bard, Oisin or Ossian. The poems fed the romantic appetite of the generation and were translated into practically every European language. In Germany especially the influence of "Ossian" wrought powerfully through the enthusiasm it aroused in the young Goethe and in Schiller. ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... walked over to the creel, handling some of the sods of turf Denis Donohoe knew she was searching a constitutionally abusive mind for some word contemptuous of his wares. She found it at last, for she smacked her lips. It was in the Gaelic. "Spairteach!" she cried—a word that was eloquent of bad turf, stuff dug from the first layer of the bog, a mere covering for ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... battle-scenes, where it suggests the crash of maces and swords, and the blare of horns, the galloping of horses, and the general din of huge battle. Leading-motives are much used, too, with good effect and most ingenious elaboration, notably the Banquo motive. A certain amount of Gaelic color also adds interest to the work, particularly a stirring Gaelic march. The orchestration shows both ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... a kind of roar, as near to the above as English letters will sound. Perhaps he was laughing in Gaelic, with a cross of Scandinavian; but, whatever it was, he seemed heartily ashamed of his rudeness, and looked as solemn as ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Danes make what they can of that," he said. "It will take a man born to the Gaelic to catch aught of it through yon hole, if he thinks he understands it ...
— A Sea Queen's Sailing • Charles Whistler
... his fingers. "That's right! I sold both of those pistols at about the same time; a gentleman in Chicago got the Murdoch. The Strahan had a star-pierced lobe on the hammer. Did you ever get anybody to translate the Gaelic inscription on ...
— Murder in the Gunroom • Henry Beam Piper
... on Tuscan, Ay, or even on Etruscan, Than on Erse; But fanatical campaigners, Gaelic Leaguers and Sinn Feiners Find ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 25, 1917 • Various
... ordinary "town," which, as often as we use, we are speaking the tongue of the Trans-Alpine Gauls, taking a syllable from the word of a half-forgotten people. From yet another source is the locative "ham." Chester is of Roman origin, tun is of Gaelic; but "ham" is Anglo-Saxon, and means village, whence the sweet word home. Witness the use of this suffix in Effingham and the like. "Stoke" and "beck" and "worth" are also Saxon. "Thorpe" and "by" are Danish, as in Althorp and Derby. These reminiscent instances from ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... now, with her own Government, with her own language back again—Gaelic—an' what language in the wurrld yields greater music than the old Gaelic?—with Ireland united and Ireland's land in the care of IRISHMEN: with Ireland's people self-respectin' an' sober an' healthy an' educated: with Irishmen employed ...
— Peg O' My Heart • J. Hartley Manners
... Sacred Scriptures and writings of the Fathers. He is often called Cumine Ailbhe (Cumine the Fair-haired). His name survives in Kilchuimein (Church of St. Cumine), the ancient designation of Fort-Augustus, and the only name by which it is still called in Gaelic. A spot in the same neighbourhood is known as St. Cumine's Return; it is in the vicinity of a hill called St. Cumine's Seat. The parish church of Glenelg also is ...
— A Calendar of Scottish Saints • Michael Barrett
... Beaumont, and so forth; but there were several that I had to interpret, such as Oakdene, Thornbrake, Beechcroft, Hillbrow, Woodcote, Fernside, Fairholme, Inglenook, etc. And there was one name that I could not explain to him at all—an awful name, which I fancied might be Gaelic or Celtic, though I appealed in vain to Scottish, Irish, and Welsh friends for an interpretation of its meaning. It was written ...
— With Zola in England • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... (Gaelic), spoken mainly in areas located along the western seaboard, English is the language ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... a grey-headed man, slack in the twist but limber in the joints—distinguished by a constant lowering of the eye and a spasmodic twitching of the corners of the mouth. He was active and nimble, and in moments of excitement much given to spitting Gaelic oaths like a wild-cat. But, spite his half-century of life, he was still the best and the most daring man of a company who had taken ...
— Bog-Myrtle and Peat - Tales Chiefly Of Galloway Gathered From The Years 1889 To 1895 • S.R. Crockett
... the Proud, better known as Shane O'Neill; O'Donnell, on his arrival, met most, of his clan, headed by his son, up in arms against him; the new Earl of Clanricard had already been deposed by his people and another McWilliams, with a Gaelic name, elected in his place; and so with ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... he was in earnest discussion with one of his men, and he was not using English but sputtering a torrent of shrill Gaelic, shrugging his shoulders, throwing his arms about, thrilling with excitement—but for all that, he was the picture of a man that most women would ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... time, possessed several of these dogs, verified as being derived from the best stock on the island, from which their parents—who understood no language but Gaelic—were brought direct, I have noted some of their odd, whimsical ways, a few of which I will illustrate, taking for my exponent one very remarkable little fellow who was a genuine type ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... regarded often as impostors and always as nuisances and pests. "Sornares," so violently denounced in those acts, were what are here called "masterful beggars," who, when they could not obtain what they asked for by fair means, seldom hesitated to take it by violence. The term is said to be Gaelic, and to import a soldier. The life of such a beggar is well described in the "Belman of London," printed in 1608—"The life of a beggar is the life of a souldier. He suffers hunger and cold in winter, and heate and thirste in summer; he goes lowsie, he goes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 336 Saturday, October 18, 1828 • Various
... of native children, and even adults, so soon as they go into their families to live, as though their own were not good enough for them. These native names are generally much more significant, and euphonious than the Saxon, Gaelic, or Celtic. Thus, Adenigi means, "Crowns have their shadow." This was the name of a servant boy of ours, whose father was a native cotton trader, it is to be hoped that this custom among Missionaries and other Christian settlers, of changing the ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... hands in his, "although I used to sometimes when you were a little girl and talked very wild English. Don't you remember how vexed you used to be, and how pleased you were when your papa turned the laugh against me by getting me to say that awful Gaelic sentence about 'A young calf ate a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... na reultan mor, etc., are the beginning words of an old Gaelic ditty, the English of which runs thus: "Thou who art amid the stars, move to thy bed with ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... criticise, and we may be permitted to express a mild regret that our native school, though by no means excluded, does not make so good a show as its energy and talents would seem to warrant. Our native composers are especially noticeable for their wide range of themes, for the Celtic and Gaelic glamour which they infuse into their treatment of them, and for their realistic titles. We have drawn up a list of instrumental works which illustrate these characteristics, but which are unfortunately conspicuous by their absence from Sir HENRY WOOD'S scheme. As, however, it is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 29, 1917 • Various
... which, having arrived at 18 years of age, he went to complete his education in Edinburgh. He afterwards made a tour of travel, and returning home in 1730 married his cousin, Janet Mackenzie of Scatwell, on which occasion a fine Gaelic poem was composed in her praise by John Mackay, the famous blind piper and poet of Gairloch, whose daughter became the mother of William Ross, a Gaelic bard even more celebrated than the blind piper himself. If we believe her eulogist the lady possessed all ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... many churches of various denominations, but was particularly interested in my own, the Protestant Episcopal. The Rt. Rev. H. C. Potter, Bishop of New York, and his secretary, Rev. Percy S. Grant, were passengers on board our ship, the Gaelic. The special purpose of the Bishop's visit to Honolulu was to effect the transfer of the Episcopal churches of the Sandwich Islands to the jurisdiction of our House of Bishops. He expressed himself as delighted with his cordial reception and with the ready, Christian-like manner ...
— An Ohio Woman in the Philippines • Emily Bronson Conger
... of the final markets for his produce. His reading is limited to the local papers, and these, following the example of the modern press, carefully eliminate serious thought as likely to deprive them of readers. But Patrick, for all his economic backwardness, has a soul. The culture of the Gaelic poets and story-tellers, while not often actually remembered, still lingers like a fragrance about his mind. He lives and moves and has his being in the loveliest nature, the skies over him ever cloudy like an opal; and the mountains flow ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on St. Michael's Bay, the house of the last Cornish- speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of North America, through the ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... as much as on the county," said Dr. Mortimer. "A glance at our friend here reveals the rounded head of the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm and power of attachment. Poor Sir Charles's head was of a very rare type, half Gaelic, half Ivernian in its characteristics. But you were very young when you last saw Baskerville Hall, ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... creatures must have come several long miles for their balmy spoil. There is but one human creature in that shieling, but he is not at all solitary. He no more wearies of that lonesome place than do the sunbeams or the shadows. To himself alone he chants his old Gaelic songs, or frames wild ditties of his own to the raven or red-deer. Months thus pass on; and he descends again to the lower country. Perhaps he goes to the wars—fights—bleeds—and returns to Badenoch or Lochaber; and ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... across the mimic war correspondence here presented to the public. The stirring story of these tin-soldier campaigns occupies the greater share of the book, though interspersed with many pages of scattered verse, not a little Gaelic idiom and verb, a half-made will and the chaptering of a novel. This game of tin soldiers, an intricate "Kriegspiel," involving rules innumerable, prolonged arithmetical calculations, constant measuring with foot-rules, and the throwing of dice, sprang from the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... this collection of tales, I owe much to Mr. W. A. Craigie, who translated the stories from the Gaelic and the Icelandic; to Miss Elspeth Campbell, who gives a version of the curious Argyll tradition of Ticonderoga (rhymed by Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson, who put a Cameron where a Campbell should be); to Miss Violet Simpson, who ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... all his strength as if by a miracle. The gaunt look had left his face. Almost it seemed that its contour was already fuller. There is a beautiful old Gaelic legend of a Fairy who wooed a Prince, came again and again to him, and, herself invisible to all but the Prince, hovered in the air, sang loving songs to draw him away from the crowd of his indignant nobles, who heard her voice and summoned magicians to rout her ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... boy's answer was quick and disdainful. Somehow he would rather Granny would not pat his head and lavish endearing Gaelic epithets upon him to-night; such things had been very soothing in the past when he was sleepy and wanted to go to bed; but now he was a big boy, going to school, and had fought and defeated in single combat one of the MacDonalds' enemies, and he could ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... a word of Gaelic origin, applied, with some sense of the ridiculous, to a thin, wasted, dried-up creature. In the present case it was the nickname by which the boy was known at school; and, indeed, where ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... ought to wear. When she got into the Uxbridge road she breathed more freely, and in the lightness of her heart she continued her conversation with Bras, giving that attentive animal a vast amount of information, partly in English, partly in Gaelic, which he answered only by a low whine or a shake of his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... four years of age, in kilt and hose, his golden curls flying in the wind, ran at full speed up the steep side of the hill; a panting woman, without bonnet or shawl, following hard upon his track, shaking her fist at him, and vociferating her commands (doubtless for him to return) in Gaelic, ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, strong-willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A sequel to ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... Gaelic,[44] in Welsh,[45] and in Irish,[46] have been published. The works of American authors are included in Allibone's Dictionary, referred to under English literature, but special books have also been prepared, such as Truebner's Guide,[47] Stevens's ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... Iroquois division of the village; this circumstance led us to form another acquaintance that for some time afforded us some amusement, en passant. We discovered that a very ugly old widow, who resided in that quarter, had two very pretty young daughters, to whom we discoursed in Gaelic; they answered in Iroquois; and in a short time the best understanding imaginable was established between us, (Mac and myself, be it always understood.) No harm came of it, though; I vow there did not; the priests, it seems, thought otherwise. Our acquaintance ...
— Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory • John M'lean
... compression; but in others a certain amount of reshaping has seemed desirable. The object in all cases has been the same, to bring out as clearly as possible for modern readers the beauty and interest which are either manifest or implicit in the Gaelic original. ...
— The High Deeds of Finn and other Bardic Romances of Ancient Ireland • T. W. Rolleston
... Macnab didna like what ye said. He had a laddie killed in Gallypoly, and he's no lookin' for peace this side the grave. He's my best friend in Glasgow. He's an elder in the Gaelic kirk in the Cowcaddens, and I'm what ye call a free-thinker, but we're wonderful agreed on the fundamentals. Ye spoke your bit verra well, I must admit. Gresson will hear tell of ye as a ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... for a week, in the neighbourhood of Cushendun, just to see a bit of the north-eastern corner of Erin, where, at the end of the nineteenth century, as at the beginning of the seventeenth, the population is almost exclusively Catholic and Celtic. The Gaelic Sorley Boy is, in Irish state papers, Carolus Flavus—yellow-haired Charles—the most famous of the Macdonnell fighters; the one who, when recognised by Elizabeth as Lord of the Route, and given a patent for his estates, burned the document before his retainers, swearing that what had been ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... sea rolling over a dark red or violet-coloured rock, must be seen to more advantage in the full light of day. Yet we question whether we could have been more deeply sensible of the beauty and grandeur of the scene than we were under the unusual circumstances we have described. The boatmen sang a Gaelic joram or boat-song in the cave, striking their oars very violently in time with the music, which resounded finely through the vault, and was echoed back by roof and pillar. One of them, also, fired a gun, with the view of producing a still stronger effect ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... the songs by Liffey's wave That maidens sung. They sang their land, the Saxon's slave, In Saxon tongue. Oh, bring me here that Gaelic dear Which cursed the Saxon foe. When thou didst charm my ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan
... country. It is generally supposed that they called themselves Gail, or Gael, out of which name the Greeks formed their [Greek: Keltai], and the Romans Galli. Some, however, deduce the name from the Gaelic "Ceilt," an inhabitant ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... night so long ago, when Dan and I kneeled on the stone-flagged floor beside one another and listened to my uncle pray and pray and pray in Gaelic, I whispered— ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars
... annual meeting of the Nor'westers at Fort William in July of 1814. Like generals on field of war they laid out their campaign. Duncan Cameron, a United Empire Loyalist officer of the 1812 War, is to don his red regimentals and proceed to Red River, where his knowledge of the Gaelic tongue may be trusted to win over Selkirk settlers. "Nothing but the complete downfall of the colony will satisfy some," wrote one of the fiery Nor'westers to a brother officer. Such was the mood of the Nor'westers ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... talk Gaelic and French also; the first two they learned from their father, and the other ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... forgeries of the eighteenth century were those of Macpherson, Chatterton, and Ireland. Space (fortunately) does not permit a discussion of the Ossianic question. That fragments of Ossianic legend (if not of Ossianic poetry) survive in oral Gaelic traditions, seems certain. How much Macpherson knew of these, and how little he used them in the bombastic prose which Napoleon loved (and spelled "Ocean"), it is next to impossible to discover. The case of Chatterton is ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... is, at present, spoken throughout Great Britain, is neither the ancient primitive speech of the island, nor derived from it; but is altogether of foreign origin. The language of the first inhabitants of our island, beyond doubt, was the Celtic, or Gaelic, common to them with Gaul; from which country, it appears, by many circumstances, that Great Britain was peopled. This Celtic tongue, which is said to be very expressive and copious, and is, probably, one of the most ancient languages in the world, obtained once in most of the ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... timber-work, a word of obscure origin of which several corruptions are found in early Scottish. It is rather a favourite with writers of "sword and feather" novels. Other sham antiques are slug-horn, Chatterton's absurd perversion of the Gaelic slogan, ...
— The Romance of Words (4th ed.) • Ernest Weekley
... and Kay. But the last named is, like Key, more usually from the word we now spell "quay," though Key and Keys can also be shop-signs, as of course Crosskeys is. Linnell is sometimes for Lionel, as Neil, [Footnote: But the Scottish Neil is a Gaelic name often exchanged for the unrelated Nigel.] Neal for Nigel. The ladies have fared better. Vivian, which is sometimes from the masculine Vivien, is found in Dorset as Vye, and Isolt and Guinevere, which long survived as font-names in Cornwall, have given several names. From Isolt come Isard, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... an article for Dana too. Are we going to be read? I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope you will come round tonight. ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... roughly and cursed him soundly in both English and Gaelic, without avail, but the child's cry so full of pain and weakness roused him with a start. In a minute Dr. Frederick Barner was himself. He took the child gently from his mother and laid him ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... MR. WHEELER,—Your letter followed me here, where at least one can breathe. This really is a most beautiful country filled with self-respecting Gaelic-speaking Scotch from the islands of the north—crofters driven here to make place for sheep and fine estates on their ancestral ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane
... consecrated ground, finally the church erected on such an enclosure; and eglos, a corruption of the Latin ecclesia, found elsewhere in Cornwall at Egloshayle and Egloskerry; the same word appearing usually in English place-names as Eccles, in Welsh as Eglwys, in Irish as Aglish or Eglish (Gaelic, eaglais). The llan or lan may generally be considered of earlier date than the eglwys or eglos. Lanteglos is a large parish, with which visitors chiefly become familiar by means of Polruan, ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... from the Gaelic word tanaiste, a chief, or the next heir to an estate—have been frequently found. These stones were used in connection with the coronation of a king or the inauguration of a chief. The custom dates from ...
— Roman Mosaics - Or, Studies in Rome and Its Neighbourhood • Hugh Macmillan
... reverence, to call upon you to ascertain whether you'd be agreeable to our what I may call unanimous intinsion of asking the new cojutor to be prisident of the Gaelic association of Kilronan, ...
— My New Curate • P.A. Sheehan
... inexpressible longing for home came over him. There was a shop in a by-street which exposed photographs of Galway scenery in its windows for a time. Hyacinth used to go day by day to gaze at them. The modest front of the Gaelic League Hyce was another haunt of his. He used to stand Debating his eyes on the Irish titles of the books in the window, and repeating the words he read aloud to himself until the passers-by turned to look at him. Once he entered a low-browed, dingy ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... English are just simply foreigners, nothing more, nothing less; they talk Danish, German, Norman French, and sometimes a mixture of all three; back of THEM, they talk Latin, and ancient British, Irish, and Gaelic; and then back of these come billions and billions of pure savages that talk a gibberish that Satan himself couldn't understand. The fact is, where you strike one man in the English settlements that you can understand, you wade through awful ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of translating into English "the best and most approved poetry of the Ancient and Modern Scoto-Gaelic Bards, with such notes on the usages and superstitions therein alluded to, as will enable the English reader to form a clear and correct idea of the originals." In the course of a rather ornate letter, Borrow offers himself as the translator and compiler ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... origin. It is true that the name of this town in all old charts is spelt Gordon; but, inasmuch as it is a compound of two Celtic words meaning raven's rock, it might as feasibly have been handed down by the Gaelic Scotch as by ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... published Story of Early Gaelic Literature, attention is directed to the curious eastern and pantheistic character of some archaic verse. Critics are for ever trying to show how some one particular antique race was the first begetter of religion and mystic symbolism. Perplexed ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... The Wee Folk.—In Gaelic they are usually called "The Peace People" (sithchean). Other names are "Wee Folk" (daoine beaga); "Light Folk" (slaugh eutrom), etc. As in the Lowlands, they are also referred to as "guid fowk" ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie
... 1803 nearly 900 miles of roadway and more than 1,000 bridges, by which the population of the Highlands was suddenly placed within reach of civilisation. The Highlanders had hitherto been chiefly poachers and smugglers; they now became farmers and hand-workers. And, though Gaelic schools were organised for the purpose of maintaining the Gaelic language, yet Gaelic- Celtic customs and speech are rapidly vanishing before the approach of English civilisation. So, too, in Ireland; between the counties of Cork, Limerick, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... lawyers!" he cried fiercely. "I will be begging your pardon, Mr. Coulson," he added apologetically. "But it will be a great peety that a fine man like yourself would be hafing anything to do with the tribe. But if they had jist been hafing the Gaelic, I would haf been giving it to them. Och, but it will be a peety about the English. It would be but ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... that both these young women had long since ceased to regard their father as anything except an unfailing source of revenue—an old dear who clung to Port Agnew, homely speech, and homely ways, hooting good-naturedly at the pretensions of their set, and, with characteristic Gaelic stubbornness, insisting upon living and enjoying the kind of life that appealed to him with peculiar force as the only ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne
... a solid hour trying to decide on a name for the shack. I wanted to call it "Crucknacoola," which is Gaelic for "A Little Hill of Sleep," but Dinky-Dunk brought forward the objection that there was no hill. Then I suggested "Barnavista," since about all we can see from the door are the stables. Then I said "The Builtmore," in a spirit of mockery, and then Dinky-Dunk in a spirit of ...
— The Prairie Wife • Arthur Stringer
... vent to his feelings in Gaelic when labouring under strong excitement. On this occasion his utterances were terrible in tone whatever their meaning ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... had been in Scotland and, as has been said, was a philologist of the better class, is scrupulously exact in spelling proper names as a rule. Perhaps Loch Fyne is not exactly "Le Lac Beau" (I have not the Gaelic). But from Pentland to Solway (literally) he makes no blunder, and he actually knows ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... among the hills and slept among the heather under countless stars. For dress he wore the English costume with the extra splash of colour that betokened the vanity of his race. "'Fore God, sir, you came none too soon," he cried in his impetuous Gaelic way. "This riff-raff of your London town had knifed me in another gliff. I will be thinking that it would have gone ill with me but for your opportune arrival. I am much beholden to you, and if ever I can pay the debt do not fail to call on ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... singing in a most uncouth way. Of all the horrible noises I ever heard, those which a half-drunken Tartar makes are the most discordant. The deep nasal and guttural noises he emits would beat Welsh and Gaelic by a long chalk. ...
— Forest & Frontiers • G. A. Henty
... story, at any rate as he told it, in quaint uncertain English, intermixed with spates of his own Gaelic as he got excited over the account of his prowess. One of them was an officer, and Donald finished up by ferreting out of his meal-bag a magnificent gold watch, lawful prize from his point of view, taken out of the ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... Elgin were visited. They passed Gordon Castle at Fochabers, drove over the heath where Macbeth met the witches, 'classic ground to an Englishman,' as the old editor of Shakespeare felt, and reached Nairn, where now they heard for the first time the Gaelic tongue,—'one of the songs of Ossian,' quoth the justly incredulous doctor,—and saw peat fires. At Fort George they were welcomed by Sir Eyre Coote. The old military aspirations of Bozzy flared up and were soothed: ...
— James Boswell - Famous Scots Series • William Keith Leask
... Donald," said he, in the Gaelic; "and I will tell you that the Skye College in the old times never turned out a better pupil. And will you take a glass of whiskey now, or a glass of claret? And it is a great pity your hair is red, or they would ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... short pause, she commenced. Of course she spoke in Gaelic; and I translate from my recollection of the Gaelic; but rather from the impression left upon my mind, than from any recollection of the words. She drew her chair near the fire, which we had reason to fear would soon be put out by ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald
... were taken from the Gaelic, and are charming examples of the naive beauty of the old Irish, and of Dr. Hyde's accurate and sympathetic modern rendering. From "Beside ...
— Stories to Tell to Children • Sara Cone Bryant |
